Court hears challenge to California’s execution method

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The view a condemned inmate would have from a table inside the death chamber is shown during a 2010 tour of the lethal injection facility at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, file)

SAN FRANCISCO — A state appeals court hearing here Tuesday underscored the extent to which California’s death penalty system has been lost in the legal weeds.

During less than an hour of arguments, the 1st District Court of Appeal offered few hints on whether it would uphold a Marin County judge’s 2011 order blocking executions because state prison officials failed to comply with complex administrative rules in revising California’s three-drug lethal injection procedures. The highly technical issue is the latest legal impediment for the state, which has not carried out an execution in more than seven years.

Justice J. Anthony Kline was the only member of the panel to signal where he stands in the case, indicating the prison department’s effort to overhaul its execution method was botched.

But Justices James Lambden and James Richman were silent during the hearing, asking no questions of either side. The court now has 90 days to rule.

While the outcome rests on arcane legal rules, the result could be important for the pace of California’s execution process. If the appeals court sides with the state, allowing the three-drug method to move forward, it might prompt resolution of related federal court challenges to lethal injection — possibly allowing executions to proceed next year. But a loss for the state would likely add to the interminable delays on the 734-inmate death row.

In response to a federal judge’s 2006 orders, the state in 2010 adopted new execution procedures designed to address concerns inmates might suffer an inhumane death during the lethal injections; those included changes in training, how the drugs are administered and the construction of a new execution chamber at San Quentin.

But Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D’Opal found the state did not follow strict administrative rules, invalidating the execution procedures. Among other findings was that prison officials failed to explain why the state did not choose a single-drug alternative, which involves a fatal dose of a sedative, to replace the controversial three-drug option, as other states such as Arizona, Washington and Ohio have done.

The Brown administration has revealed it is exploring the single drug method, but has pushed forward with the legal battle over the three-drug lethal injections.

During Tuesday’s arguments, Quinn, the state’s lawyer, insisted prison officials followed the rules and provided extensive public input on the execution method that “dealt with every conceivable issue related to the death penalty.”

Kline, Gov. Jerry Brown’s legal affairs secretary during his first term as governor in the 1970s, was not convinced.

“People who were participating didn’t know a lot of the things they had a right to know,” he said.

Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz